violence

22 posts

UC Berkeley Police Captain: Linking Arms is Violent Protest


After University of California, Berkeley campus police and Alameda County Sheriff’s deputies initiated violent action against Occupy Cal protesters on Wednesday, UC Police Capt. Margo Bennett has come up with a justification for the police action captured on video above. Continue reading

FBI Report Shows Violent Crime Down, War on Drugs Still Alive in 2010

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program released their annual report on Monday. The 2010 data shows a continuing downward trend in violent crimes while drug arrests remain high despite the Obama administration’s previously stated wish to change the nation’s drug enforcement policies.

Drug offenses made up the majority of arrests nationwide, with a total of about 1.6 million. A whopping 81.9% of those were for possession, rather than sale or manufacturing. Marijuana offenses led the pack with 45.8% of all drug arrests being for marijuana possession. Continue reading

War For Profit In Bougainville

“It is my opinion that absent Rio Tinto’s mining activity on Bougainville or its insistence that the Panguna mine be re-opened, the government would not have engaged in hostilities or taken military action on the island.”

”Because of Rio Tinto’s financial influence in PNG, the company controlled the government.”

”The government of PNG followed Rio Tinto’s instructions and carried out its requests … BCL was directly involved in the military operations on Bougainville, and it played an active role. BCL supplied helicopters, which were used as gunships, the pilots, troop transportation, fuel and troop barracks.”

– Sir Michael Somare Continue reading

Canadian Journalist Dorothy Parvaz Released from Iran

Parvaz was born in Iran to an Iranian father and American mother. Her family moved to British Columbia where she obtained a degree in English literature at the University of British Columbia. She had only quite recently accepted a job reporting for Al Jazeera, being based out of its headquarters in Doha, Qatar. She disappeared on April 29, 2011 and it was later revealed that she was detained by Syrian authorities on her way to report on anti-government demonstrations in that country. She was eventually deported to Iran where she was held for a further 19 days.

That Parvaz has multiple citizenships and passports seems to have been the pretext for her detainment. On Tuesday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman claimed Parvaz had committed several passport violations on her trip to Syria, stating that the journalist had “traveled to Syria with expired Iranian passport, planned to work without a press permit and had several passports on her.” While Parvaz likely used her Canadian or American passport to enter Syria, Iran doesn’t officially recognized multiple citizenships for Iranians.

Parvaz’s family have been jubilant today after receiving a phone-call from her last night around 9:30 pm PST to let them know she had been released and was planning on returning to Vancouver by Wednesday or Thursday. “It was one of the best moments of my life,” said her father. “I’m 68 years old and I’ve never had a moment like it.”
CBC, Al Jazeera, Seattle Times.

Chief of the IMF Arrested for Attempted Rape


The political world of France was hit with an unexpected scandal today as news emerged of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest by NYPD late last night on charges of attempted rape.

Strauss-Kahn, a former French Finance Minister and member of the Socialist Party of France, has been serving as the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund since 2007. Responsible for the French economic turn-a-round in the the 90s that ensured the country’s entry into the EU, Strauss-Kahn was nonetheless forced to resign as Finance Minister amongst accusations of corruption relating to a fraud investigation into Elf Aquitaine, a French oil company, although he was later acquitted.
Continue reading

Life, Death and Violence: A Study of May 14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHXGn0pjAGw

Men! Man your battle-stations! Women! Woman your battle-stations! Children! Shouldn’t you be in school? Oh, it’s the weekend? FINE! Child your battle-stations! Little Birds, an alien threat is upon us. They wish to destroy our entire way of life. They wish to destroy the squirrels. They wish to destroy the hippopotamuses. They wish to destroy our supermarkets and our bodegas.  They wish to destroy our LensCrafters. They wish to destroy our embassies. They wish to destroy Disneyland. They wish to destroy Disney World. They have issued a press release stating that the do not wish to destroy Disney California Adventure because they think that one’s kind of fun. Rubes! Rubes we say! Philistines! Philistines we shriek! They even, and we’re struggling to say this. It’s like all of the air has been Dyson’d out of our bodies, but, we’re going to try. Birds, they wish to destroy…

Continue reading

Life, Death and Violence: A Study of May 11

Little birds, while researching today’s article, we came across some shocking news. Barbie™, everyone’s favorite doll, was, at one time, an SS Hauptsturmführer known as The Butcher of Lyon. She tortured men, women, and children (we assume this is why Kelly™ always looks like she’s afraid of something despite living the glamorous life of a plastic doll in Los Angeles) through electroshock and forcing them to have sex with dogs. That’s right. Everyone’s favorite Special Education Teacher/Paratrooper/Pet Stylist is a murderer who was put on trial for her war crimes today in 1987. We assume she was declared innocent (though, clearly, she wasn’t) as she became President of the United States in 2000, stealing Hilary Clinton’s glory after a previous failed attempt in 1992. Perhaps her crimes were still in the memories of our nation’s peoples. Perhaps that’s why she lost to the nation’s First Black President™, Billiam Clinton.

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Life, Death and Violence: A Study of May 4

Oh my god. We really can’t believe that we’re standing up here, talking to all of you people. We’ve worked so hard and we’ve failed so much so that, we’re sorry for tearing up. We really are! It’s just, we’re so happy right now. We mean, obviously we have to thank the Academy for rewarding us with this great achievement that all of the other nominees deserved just as much. Go you! Go you! We’re all winners, even if we’re the ones with the statue. Oh! We’re just a little hot up here (fans selves). This is just so exciting! We came from a small town without the support of anyone but screw you all now! Screw you all! We made it and you’re watching us on television right now! We made it! We made it. (softer) We made it. And it’s all because we believed. We believed in our writers. We believed in our producers. We believed in the little people that make this all happen and, of course, we believed in God because He’s the one that gave us all this talent and He’s the one that’s opened up the doors so that we could share it, not only with everyone in this room, but with everyone in the world. (raises trophy above head) We did it!
Continue reading

Life, Death and Violence: A Study of April 22

Good morning little birds! Oh dear, oh me, oh my! You’re all covered in residue from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. And on Earth Day too! We’ve got to get you cleaned up, but we’re all out of Dawn™ or whatever detergent is the one that has those commercials of workers cleaning ducks. Covered in black gold on Earth Day! Oh dear, oh me, oh my! Let’s get clean with Joseph:

There! All clean! You’re no longer an endangered species! We’ve saved you! But because you’re all such individuals, maybe you are endangered. We know for sure that LaZiguezon is endangered. That Canadian weather, man! We don’t think we could handle it and we live in Southwest Ontario*! Anyways, it’s Life, Death and Violence™, America’s number one source for environmental journalism** and jokes about The French™. Oh, the French™! And on this day, the anniversary of the greatest environmental tragedy ever perpetuated on the world by those smarmy English®, we bring you people and events that matter to their sworn enemies for all time, no matter what any treaty says! That’s right, we’re talking about The French™ so surrender your seriousness and grab a baguette, we’ve gotta get going or we’ll miss the last bus to Giverny! France shuts down on Good Friday (they’re good Catholics, well, the France we romanticize is), so we’re going to talk about what happened yesterday! OMGSHUTUPLETSGO

LA VIE!

(En ce qui entre parenthèses est absolument vide de sens)
  • Michel Rolle: 1652: That hair! So French™! A mathematician, which explains the adult onset acne*** (or is that supposed to be scruff?), he developed Rolle’s Theorem which states that “a differentiable function which attains equal values at two distinct points must have a point somewhere between them where the first derivative (the slope of the tangent line to the graph of the function) is zero” or f'(c)=0. He also hated calculus, which isn’t surprising since Wikipedia says he deserves to be credited with the invention of Gaussian elimination which stems from Newton’s notes and Newton invented calculus. J’accuse Rolle! J’accuse! The French™! Always at war with The English®! There is no known portrait of Rolle. Newton slashed them all****.
  • 1774: Jean Baptiste-Biot: Watch out everyone! Rocks can fall from the sky at any moment! Not only that, they’ve been sent this way by aliens! Three run homer for the Orion Warriors! And The French™! They believed him! Meteorites are now considered scientific fact as opposed to sports history, which, really is a shame, because the Warriors went all the way that year for the first time in a lightyear*****.
  • Jean-Baptiste, and how could he not be French with that smug face, also participated in the world’s very first hot air balloon ride! Is anyone shocked by the fact that the French conquered hot air? Anyways, he rode with some gay guy named Lussac. They talked about physics, if you know what we mean.
  • He also studied polarization which gave us LCD televisions and camera filters. Bow to your French master. He lived in Paris, he died in Paris. He knew how fucking magnets worked.
  • 1972: Gwendal Peizerat: Listen Gwendy, ice dancing is not a sport. No matter how many medals you win (silver at Nagano, gold at Salt Lake), no matter how much the Olympics tries to legitimize it, ice dancing is not a sport. Couldn’t you have been a figure skater like your cousin****** Jean? He never amounted to anything, but at least he had some athleticism!
  • All you have is jazz and a pretty face, Fabio. You’re from Bron for chrissakes. You couldn’t do something more befitting of the Brawny paper towel guy? Oh, you don’t know who that is, Fabio? Of course you don’t. Get back to your theatrics, pretty boy. I’m sure the high school quarterback is really as interested in you as you want him to be. We’re sure he is.
  • Anyways, we’re sure that after your “career” is over you can sell fake butter and be on romance novel covers. Oh wait, that job’s already taken by actor slash model Fabio! Dance away Gellert Grindelwald. Dance into the sunset and do your French thing. We don’t care.

LA MORT!

(La mort est tout sauf féminin, à moins, bien sûr, il est le résultat d’une cession)

  • 1142: Pierre Abélard: Peter was a sexxxy theologian who is famous for sexxxing sexxxy French nun*******Héloïse. With all those accents and umlauts, how couldn’t he find her attractive? They met at the Notre Dame (the Parisian one) and it was love at first sight. She with her deep knowledge of classical letters in Greek, Latin and, oh!, HEBREW and him with his ability to spout theology and philosophy to thousands at once! Oh! Le petit mort! How couldn’t they be together? But, oh, it wasn’t to last. After one particular petit mort, Héloïse’s womb grew and grew until out popped a baby boy named Astrolabe (who would later become the inspiration for the Japenese AstroBoy********)
  • To appease her uncle, they married secretly, so as not to harm Peter’s Important Man Career™. The uncle, j’accuse!, announced the marriage publicly and after Pierre sent Héloïse to a convent, Fulbert, the uncle, castrated him! He castrated him! Why? Because he thought Pierre wanted to be rid of  Héloïse who was then forced to become a nun and write letters saying how sad she was because all she ever wanted to do was be a can can dancer at the Moulin Rouge which hadn’t even been built yet which is probably why Fulbert was always so confused by his niece. She spouted crazy talk. Witch? Maybe that’s why she was forced to be a nun. She was a witch*********.

 

 

 

  • 1699: Jean Racine: He wrote plays at the same time as Moliere and was considered one of the Big Three. Unlike Moliere, he wrote tragedies. He drank too much and died of liver cancer. Obviously, the following video is all that needs to be said of Jean:

 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hXzKnVgMdU

LE VIOLENCE!

(Dans lequel je suis pas par des traducteurs)
  • 1809: Battle of Eckmühl: Oh, it’s on. It’s on like Donkey Kong! BANG! POW! SHOOT EM UP! Napoleon took control of the horribly named “Campaign of 1809” after having to, oh my god le grande mort, retreat eleven days earlier after a surprise attack when the war began. However, Napoleon didn’t know that the French garrison of Ratibone had fallen to the Austrians and inadvertently gave the remaining Austrian calvalry (since he killed about a third of Austria’s army) a route to escape. Damn Austrians. Why can’t you just let The French™ have what’s theirs!? Oh, because it’s not? Oh, well, that seems fair. You go on with your bad selves. Bee tee dubs, Napoleon the Short (ohmahgawdguyzthatssowittyandoriginal) showed up and rotated the entire French army with his mere presence. Now, that’s a leader!

Re-cue "You Sexy Thang" here.

D’AURES TRUCS SYMPA QUI S’EST PASSÉ AUJOUD’HUI!

(Certains cela n’a rien à voir avec le français)
  • 753:  OMG NEW AND IMPROVED! Twins found Rome™! Rome™ conquers France sometime later.
  • 33:  OMG BETRAYAL! Judas betrays his buddy for some silver. The French™ go cuckoo for the buddy sometime later.
  • 1519: OMG SHINY! French neighbor’s Spanish son Hernan lands in Veracruz and begins slaughtering everyone due to his gold-lust.  The Aztec™ never saw it coming until sometime later.
  • 1898: OMG WAR! The United States (patent pending), with land purchased sometime before by The French™, declare that they’re at war with Spain! The Spanish find out sometime later
  • 1910: OMG A COMET! It flies over France and the rest of the world, too, we guess, but mainly France.
  • 1910: OMG SAD! Comedian Mark Twain, born under a comet, on land originally owned by The French™ sometime before the Louisiana Purchase, dies under the same comet that flies over France and, we guess, Connecticut, but mainly France.
  • 1952: OMG SECRETARIES! It’s Secretaries Day! Canadian fellow David Rakoff has a story about how when he was an assistant at a publishing company, he and all the other assistants would take the day off so as not to be confused as secretaries. These shenanigans would obviously go over well with the class obsessed French.
  • 1994: OMG ASTRONOMY! How many Poles does it take to find an extrasolar planet? Just one! Aleksander Wolszczan! Poland is near France (sort of, not really) and we know that the aliens on extrasolar planets are just goo goo for French cinema. We just know it!

You know what? Fuck The French™. We always liked American boys better. See you on Tuesday, birds, for more historical accuracy. We’re outta here (until Photo Phriday. Stop by that!)!

 

*Southwest Ontario is what we call Detroit. Mainly because of Tim Horton’s and hockey.

**Life, Death and Violence is not and has never been America’s number one source for environmental journalism.

***People who study mathematics are no more likely to get adult onset acne than people who study, say, business.

****Mr. Newton is not responsible for the absence of any portrait of Mr. Rolle.

*****We are aware a lightyear is a measure of distance, not a measure of time.

******We have no proof that Mr. Peizerat has a figure skating cousin named Jean.

*******Héloïse did not become a nun until after the culmination of her affair with Pierre. This obviously diminishes how sexxxy they were together.

********Mr. Astrolabe is not the inspiration for AstroBoy.

*********Ms. Héloïse was not a witch. She was a very nice person by all accounts who found herself in a bad situation.